10 Ways to Make a Decent Hipster Thanksgiving Dinner

Posted at 5:00 AM Nov 20, 2008

By Bonnie Ruberg

Are you a twenty-something with limited cooking experience who's planning on being away from your parents this Thanksgiving, but would still like to celebrate traditionally the brief moment Native Americans and Europeans got along? Do you have fellow, similarly hipster friends who live nearby and also want to take part in the "Hey look, we're adults!" feast? Don't fret. Your mom may be thousands of miles away baking a pie you won't get to eat, but that doesn't mean Thanksgiving dinner has to consist of Chinese takeout. Just follow these tips and you'll do fine.

10. Plan ahead.
Realizing last minute you want to put together an amazing Thanksgiving meal and then trying to scour a hectic supermarket in time to go home and cook in a flurry of flour is just not a good idea. Go shopping a couple days before. Read your recipes and see how much time everything takes. It's worth it.

9. Get creative -- but not too creative.
Recipes are recommended, but certainly not required. You're young, you're wacky, and you don't have any judgmental family members around to tell you the crazy ingredient you added to the pumpkin bread tastes like death (curry?). So go ahead, experiment a bit, but just remember that whatever you cook, your less-judgmental guests still have to eat.

8. Build a makeshift, twenty-something family.
If you're family-less on Thanksgiving, then some of your friends must be, too. Invite them over and form a temporary clan. That way nobody feels alone, and you've got assistance when it comes to eating all that food.

7. Enlist help.
The other reason it's good to invite friends: they can cook things. A traditional Thanksgiving dinner includes a lot of components -- stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes, pie, cranberry sauce, the list goes on -- but if you get each of your friends to bring something, your responsibilities as hipster hostess go down significantly. Even if you don't trust your buddies to cook anything you'd actually want to eat, you can enslave them for the day before the big meal to help out in the kitchen.

6. Cut cleanup corners.
After making that much food, you'll have enough dishes to worry about, so don't fret over the plates you use. Go plastic or paper, and toss those things when people are done. This isn't a fancy Thanksgiving, just a tasty one.